Key Points
- Angelo Marasigan has more than 8 million followers and more than 260 million likes on TikTok to date.
- He is mostly known for his funny skits and voice-over videos.
- Marasigan admits that while he continues to have fun with his videos, there is a lot of work and pressure in content creation.
* SBS Filipino's Buhay Influencer is a series focused on the nuances of undertaking an influencer path, as well as the challenges and rewards of having a public persona.
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‘It takes 12 hours to edit’ says popular TikToker.
SBS Filipino
12/04/202308:31
“If you decide to be an influencer, don’t worry about being embarrassing or being cringy. The right audience will find you for being yourself,” Mr Marasigan,19, shares.
Known for his voice work and Kardashian-inspired skits, Mr Marasigan has accumulated over eight million followers and more than 260 million likes on TikTok to date.
The young entertainer
With parents who have always been supportive of his creativity, Mr Marasigan says their encouragement furthered his interest in entertainment.
"When I was five years old, I was already singing, dancing and, acting in front of my family. I've always liked making people laugh," he said.
A young Angelo Marasigan has always been interested in being in entertainment. Credit: Angelo Marasigan
"I would actually use my dad's webcam to make videos by myself or with my sister, Lexi."
With a webcam on hand and Lexi by his side, Mr Marasigan said he began creating videos for the fun of it.
"Lexi and I have always done silly little videos on iMovie. We would do horror movies and funny videos on it. That's where our love for videos began."
Fake YouTuber to popular influencer
Before his love for videos led to content creation, Mr Marasigan admits that he had a fake YouTube channel.
"I would do a fake YouTube video and say stuff like 'Hello! Welcome to my channel!' but I wouldn't post it anywhere. It's funny because I do the same thing now, except I have a big audience."
Before the big audience of millions, Mr Marasigan shares that he began posting funny social videos in 2019 that he didn't expect to go viral.
"The video that initially went viral was like this video that I did on an Australian television voice-over. I got a lot of attention on Instagram. I was being uploaded to meme pages and Filipino pages," he said.
Voice work is central to a lot of his videos.
"I use my voice for a lot of different stuff and, in one acting class, a voiceover teacher came in and I tried to mimic her voice work and I was like: 'Wait, this actually sounds like this.'"
Becoming an entrepreneur
Mr Marasigan admits that the popularity of his videos caught him off-guard.
"My funny little videos got a lot of traction at a very rapid pace and I was so overwhelmed. I didn't expect the videos to get so big," he said.
"In 2021/2022, it started to become more of a business and a job. I still do them for fun, but now, it's a source of income as well."
For Mr Marasigan, being a source of income has now added different layers of responsibility and work to content creation.
"I need to come up with fresh content all the time and people don't really realise how much work it takes," he said.
It sounds weird to some people when I say that I'm entrepreneur because it's not like I have a physical or e-commerce store; but like any other business, there's no clocking off.
"I wake up, work on emails and attend business meetings for brands, events or collabs."
Mr Marasigan said a common request was that he create more videos and post more regularly.
I understand that there is a demand for people who want to see my videos and, I wish I can make videos every hour of every day...but there's a lot of behind the scenes that people don't see.
"My Kardashian videos go for one-two minutes; but I've never revealed this before...but it takes 12 plus hours to make one video. Two hours for filming (and) another two hours for finding music. If I'm not happy with a line or facial expression, I have to re-film. And there's putting things together and scripting," he said.
While the process could be tiring, he said he admitted to feeling relieved every time he uploaded a video.
"I feel like I've accomplished something very big," he said.
"But I'm not going to sit here and lie and say, 'Oh, it doesn't feel like I have work'; but yeah, sometimes it definitely does feel like work. There are some days that my physical or mental health is not the best, but I know that there's people waiting out there. That motivates me and pushes me to continue going so I do.
"But I do take my breaks every now and then because I don't want to burn myself out."
"When you work in media, you have a director, a writer, lights person...There's a team. In social media creation, you do everything and there's no limit to the time you work," Dr Cabalquinto said.
The pressure of the numbers
While Mr Marasigan said he did his utmost to protect himself for burning out, he said "...there are definitely days when it feels very stressful."
"My brain is sometimes all over the place and it feels like there are so many things to do [like school, content creation, personal responsibilities] and I don't know what to focus on getting done first," he said.
When I first started doing this and my audience was small, I didn't really care too much about the number [of likes and followers]; but ever since my account gained traction, there is a sense of pressure there.
"It can feel a bit discouraging when you expect a video to blow up and it doesn't. I know it's not all about numbers, but it can feel invalidating in a way; but I've also come to learn that I should be happy with my content as long as I gave it my 100 per cent effort."
Dr Cabalquinto said the pressure of the numbers had a lot to do with influencers being elevated to being public figures.
"Social media was initially a way to connect with family and friends; but platforms now have been made in such a way as those who become influencers are now public figures," he said.
"And because you have a bigger audience, you have a tendency to look at your algorithms even if it's early morning. You check the engagement, where your audience is from and what time you get the most likes. The number pushes you to tailor your content to what your audience wants and to post when engagement is at peak. It's a lot of work."
The volatility of social media
The work isn't just reliant on the numbers but on social media platforms that are increasingly become more volatile.
, Mr Marasigan said he had been branching out to other platforms to protect his brand and content.
"I have been posting regularly on Instagram and Facebook. I'm also trying to get into YouTube. So, yeah, I've just been very aware that that can happen. I feel like I have my protocols in place just in case something like that happens," he said.
For now, the popular TikToker said he was focusing on the rewards he'd gained from his popularity.
"It actually makes me emotional talking about this because I get direct messages from kids saying that they're in hospital and I've helped them through a hard time, It feels so weird, hearing kids say that I've helped them through a hard time because I've never seen myself as a role model," he said.
"Being able to just entertain and to make people laugh....It's such an important thing right now, especially when things can sometimes get really hard."
